Abstract
As a unique language Phenomenon, numeral expressions are frequently employed in Ancient Chinese poems including the Tang Poems, the most influential and most precious part of Chinese literature. Therefore it is meaningful to study them since numeral expressions in Chinese language bear abundant cultural implications that are deeply rooted in a traditional Chinese culture tradition: Daoism, the ultimate goal of which is to reach harmony between man and nature and this in fact has become the goal of life for many Chinese poets who are nurtured by Daoism. The objective of this article is to study this language phenomenon in the Tang Poems, explain why it is difficult to translate Tang Poems into English language and strive to seek a solution to this problem. In order to reach this purpose, we propose a tripartie model for numeral semantics, namely, numeral expressions in Chinese language may convey three potential meanings: perceptional meaning, notional meaning and aesthetic meaning; while expressed in different languages, the intersections of meanings (co-knowledge, consensus, consonance) vary in degree; among them, the least one is the intersection of aesthetic meanings, by which we mean the aesthetic feeling that can be motivated by language, either the original or the target. Based on our “meaning system” framework and bridging linguistic analysis and cultural philosophy, this article reaches the conclusion: three kind of meaning intersections between the original and target languages must be realized for successful translations, including, undoubtedly, the translations of the Tang Poems. In conclusion, this article points out that whenever translating is regarded as a purposeful activity, only techniques that can transmit cultural implications of the numeral expressions in Tang poems into the target language are ideal options of translation.
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Published in
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International Journal of Philosophy (Volume 13, Issue 3)
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DOI
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10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16
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Page(s)
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116-134 |
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Creative Commons
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This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Copyright
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Science Publishing Group
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Keywords
Cultural Implication, Perceptional Meaning, Notional Meaning, Aesthetic Meaning
1. Introduction
The Tang Dynasty is an important period in Chinese history; it is a time with political stability and economic prosperity and it is a period of general peace. But to most Chinese people it is a golden period because the Tang Dynasty is the golden age of poetry: all the three most famous Chinese poets, Li Bai, Du Fu and Wang Wei lived during the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
The Tang Poems belong to the greatest Chinese poetry and are the most valuable contributions by traditional Chinese culture to the whole world and their importance can not be over-estimated.
| [7] | K-H. Pohl: 1997, An Intercultural Perspective on Chinese Aestheticism. |
[7]
. Therefore I think it is important to explore the cultural implications hidden in the Chinese Tang Poems and introduce them to the readers with different cultural background.
Since it’s impossible to study everything about the Tang Poems in one article, I only focus on one aspect of the Tang Poems: the cultural implications conveyed by certain numbers in some of them and the realizations of them in their English translations.
In this article I will make such a conclusion: many Tang poets’ preference in employing numeral expressions in their poems is a unique language phenomenon; some numbers convey cultural implications which are rooted in Chinese culture tradition: Daoism, which has influenced Tang poets’ peculiar attitude to nature: an harmony between man and nature. The conception of human-nature harmony in Daoism is outstandingly expressed in the cultural implications of certain numbers or numeral expressions in some Tang Poems.
In the second chapter of this article, I will discuss on such opinions: that numbers in Chinese language may (not must) convey three potential meanings: perceptional meaning (认知意义), notional meaning (理解意义) and aesthetic meaning (审美意义). I use these terms in the following definitions: the perceptional meaning denotes achievements as the result of perceptional activities such as seeing and hearing etc; notional meaning represents people’s mental achievements as results of understanding process; and the aesthetic meaning reflects people’s mental achievements in their aesthetic experience. The first, perceptional meaning, is free from cultural color; the second, notional meaning, is full of cultural color; the third one，aesthetic meaning，is super-cultural in its nature but is strongly influenced by the second one. Therefore I suggest a term to the last two of them: cultural implications.
In chapter three, I attempt to develop a model to answer the frequently asked question: what makes it difficult to translate the numbers in the Chinese Tang poetry. The conclusion that is induced from this model is as follows: translating activity that involves only perceptional meaning of numbers is easy because the perceptional meaning is identical to people with different culture-lingua background. where numbers’ notional meaning is involved, the translating process will be difficult because it is less likely for people from different culture-lingua background to form a “consensus” between their meaning systems. The aesthetic meaning conveyed in the numbers or numeral expressions (which commonly occurs in the Tang Poems) is the most difficult to transmit into English language because it is most unlikely to reach “aesthetic consonance” between people speaking different languages: English and Chinese.
In the end of this thesis, I will focus on discussing the phenomenon: Even to best translators like Xu Yuanchong, how to deal with the numbers employed in Chinese Tang Poems in the translating process is a challenge. I will do some rethinking on the English translations of some Tang Poems, so as to discuss some contradicting options in the translating of certain numbers in the Tang Poems. According to the Principles of Christiane Nord that translating is a process of “
purposeful activity” | [5] | Nord, Christiane: Translating As a Purposeful Activity, Shanghai Foreign Language Press. |
[5]
, I reach such a conclusion: in the translating of numbers in the Tang Poems as cultural symbols, techniques that can transmit these implications into the target language can be ideal options of translations. Because such a treatment can satisfy the demand of the people with western cultural background who are attempting to decipher the special meanings hidden in Daoism: the conception of the oneness of man and nature, as is outstandingly depicted in the Tang Poems.
2. The Importance of Numbers to the Tang Poems
2.1. The Unusual Frequency of Certain Numbers in the Tang Poems
As has been pointed out in the preface of this article, Tang Dynasty is a golden age of Poetry in Chinese history since the Tang Dynasty is a time in which Chinese poetry reached its peak for its greatest achievements in the history of Chinese literature. At present there are as many as 49,000 Tang Poems created by 2200 poets in the Tang Dynasty that have survived the long passage of more than ten centuries. To most Chinese people, learning to recite the Tang Poems is the starting of their education; and “Tang” is almost a synonym of China to the people in the western countries.
The prosperity of the creation of poems in the Tang Dynasty to some extent was the result of the encouragement and support of the several open-minded rulers of that dynasty. From the founder of Tang dynasty, down to the last ruler, almost every emperor in the Tang Dynasty was a great lover and patron of poetry; they themselves claimed to be decedents and followers of Laozu (老子) and many were poets themselves. A special tribute should be paid to the Empress or the "Woman Emperor" (Wu Zetian) (684-704), through whose influence poetry became a requisite and important course in examinations leading to official promotion. This made every official as well as every scholar a poet in her ruling years.
To most educated Chinese people, Tang poems represent Chinese classic poems; the outstanding feature of the Tang Poems are the regulations that must be followed for writing classic poems in Chinese language: the length of a line must be limited to a certain number of the characters, usually five or seven; the length of a poem was limited to a certain number of lines, usually four or eight or twelve. The maintenance of rhymes, the parallelism of characters, and the balance of tones were other rules considered essential.
But it would be a misapprehension to think these are all the features of the Tang Poems.
In fact there are also some other special features of the Tang Poems worth discussing. For example, the unusual frequency of certain numbers employed in them is one of the most outstanding features of them. This phenomenon can be found especially in the poems of Li Bai, the most outstanding figure among Chinese poets. Li Bai, a romantic poet, rebelled against the rigid social life of his time, with his personalities being casual, passionate and unruly (the most typical characteristics of Daoists). Therefore the best way to observe Li Bai’s personality is to read his poems. From his poems we will find that he embraced freedom; his best poems are for love, friendship and the worship of nature. He is fond of the delights of wine, but most of all, he had deep love and chant of the strange, majestic, and awe-inspiring aspects of nature.
Such a conclusion is based on the fact: Li Bai, as many other poets in his time, prefers employing certain numbers in his poems because these special numbers in Chinese traditional culture and language convey affluent cultural implications about nature and they can also convey aesthetic meanings in the poems, as will be discussed in the second chapter.
An observation of most important Tang Poems can confirm such a conclusion that numbers and numeral expressions are very important to them.
The following is some brief statistics about the frequency of the usage of certain numbers in the famous collection 300 Tang Poems, though compiled by Hengtang Lay Buddhist, a scholar in the Qing Dynasty, are regarded by most Chinese scholars as the representatives of Tang Poems. There fore we make use of them as representatives of Tang Poems because these poems in the above-mentioned collection are regarded as the most quality ones of Chinese classic poetry, so it is reasonable for us to treat them as an acceptable sample for the mathematical statistics about the frequency of certain numbers that appear in the Tang Poems. In the above mentioned poem collection, there are 320 Tang Poems containing 1627 lines in totality. Therefore I use computer software, Microsoft Word, to calculate the frequency of the usage of certain numbers (usually in the form of numeral-classifier compounds) which are usually considered the most typical numbers in Chinese language because they have affluent implications in Chinese traditional culture). The data I obtain in my calculation are as follows:
“一”: (One) 218
“三”: (Three) 207
“九”: (Nine) 49
“百”: (Hundred) 26
“千”: (Thousand) 46
“万”: (Ten thousand) 74
Totally: 620
I also have made mathematical statistics about the poems written by Li Bai in the collection mentioned above, one of the most famous poets in The Tang Dynasty whose poems are generally regarded to represent the most grandiose achievements of Chinese poetry. Once again with computer software Microsoft Word 98, I obtained the following data in the statistics:
The total lines in the statistics: 765
The times of the presence of certain numbers:
“一” (One) 19
“三” (Three) 15
“五” (Five) 7
“九” (nine) 4
“千” (thousand) 11
“万” (ten thousand) 16
Total: 76
I also have done similar calculation of the usage of employing certain numbers of some other poets living in the Tang Dynasty such as Dufu (杜甫) and Bai Juyi (白居易) and I find their adherence of using numbers is as obvious as in the poems of Li Bai. For example, the following poem of Dufu:
两个黄鹂鸣翠柳，
一行白鹭上青天。
窗含西岭千秋雪，
门泊东吴万里船。
(A pair of golden orioles twitter in the greenish willow, A line of white herons flutter on their blue-bound way. The window frames the western mountain's thousand-year snow, By the door moor ships from Eastern Wu ten thousand li away. Du Fu: A Quatrain)
In my observation I also find another interesting phenomenon about Tang Poems: When the poets want to express their worship to the beauty and grandiose of nature in their poems, they often employ numbers like “hundred” (百), “thousand” (千), and “ten thousand” (万). Here I list only some lines quoted from the 300 poems in the collection mentioned above, which fall into this group:
千山鸟飞绝，
万径人踪灭。 (柳宗元)
(A hundred mountains and no bird, A thousand paths without a footprint; Liu Zongyuan: River-snow).
两岸猿声啼不住，
轻舟已过万重山。 (李白)
(Yet monkeys are still calling on both banks behind me To my boat these ten thousand mountains away. Li Bai: Through the Yangzi Gorges).
My observations confirm that it’s by no means unreasonable to reach such a conclusion that certain numbers’ presence is extraordinarily frequent in the Tang Poems.
2.2. Tang Poets’ Preference in Employing Numbers in Their Poetry
As stated above, a highly frequent usage of numbers in writing poems can be observed in the Tang Poems. Therefore it is valuable and significant to explore the language phenomenon, i.e., the preference of employing certain numbers and numeral expressions (by which I mean numeral-classifier compounds) in Chinese classic poetry cannot be regarded only as an individual literary phenomenon. On the contrary. I believe there must be some profound reasons hidden in this unique literary phenomenon in the Tang Poems and the reason is that certain numbers in traditional Chinese culture-lingua system can convey affluent implications and so they have strong influence on Chinese poets, who accordingly developed the habit of employing numeral expressions in their poems. As a result, there arose this unique literary phenomenon: the unusual infrequence in then usage of numbers in Chinese classic poetry, typically in Tang Poems.
The preference of employing certain numbers can also be found in the example of Liu Zongyuan , one of the most famous poets in The Tang Dynasty. Perhaps the following poem of him is well known even to Chinese children because it’s taught in every primary school in China. A beautiful scene was depicted in this poem.
千山鸟飞绝，
万径人踪灭。
孤舟蓑篱翁，
独钓寒江雪。
(A hundred mountains and no bird, A thousand paths without a footprint; A little boat, a bamboo cloak, An old man fishing in the cold river-snow.).
In this poem every one can see how important the numeral expressions are to the poet: in each line in the poem, a special number is employed, totally four: “thousand” (千) “ten thousand” (万); both“孤”and“独”mean similarly “one”. Certainly here these numbers cannot simply comprehended as “real numbers” denoting the intrinsic quantity of things; they convey much more than that. Even though it is only in the second chapter that we’ll give my analysis in detail, I think it’s by no means meaningless to make the following two conclusions here:
1. In his poem the poet wants to express his strong love for freedom in the isolation as an escape from his unsecured social life in the officialdom, therefore he intentionally employ the two Chinese “孤”and“独”, each meaning “one” to suggest his adherence to the freedom of being far away from the officialdom;
2. “千”and“ 万”, meaning thousand and ten thousand respectively, denote the grandiose of nature in which the poet can experience real and happy life from “melting” in nature, and the poet consciously or unconsciously has demonstrated the helplessness of human-beings while confronting the grandiose of nature and the feeling of helplessness of the poet is implied in the sharp contradicting of “一” (one) and “万” (ten thousand).
In order to prove that the preference of employing numbers as literary technique is by no means a personal phenomenon, I think it necessary to point out that in the poetry in other dynasties the similar phenomena can also be found. The best example, I think, is the famous poem f by Ji Xiaolan, a poet in the Qing Dynasty. I can say that a beautiful scene is depicted in his poetry and his love for numbers as literary technique is explicit. This poem shows that his adherence in using numbers is strong:
一片一片又一片，
二片三片四五片，
六片七片八九片，
飞入芦荡都不见。
(One piece, one again, then one more, Are there two, three, five or only four? Six, seven, eight and nine, each dashes, Down an’ hide into the reed marshes.).
In such a short poem, all the numbers from “one” to “six” come to the eyes of the reader, one after another. The poet describes the beautiful scene of snowfall in such a unique but effective way that I can imagine the scene in the eyes of the poet. It’s unimaginable that numbers in other languages can have the same magic charm as those in Chinese language.
3. Special Meanings of Numbers in Chinese Language
In order to discuss the special cultural implications of certain numbers in Chinese culture and language, I hereby analyze word’s meanings in general by classifying the meanings of words from a new perspective.
As is known all linguists, there are many ways to classify the meanings of a word; here in this article I classify the potential meanings of words according to people’s mental activities with which words’ meanings are invoked. Generally speaking, human’s mental activities are of three kinds: perception, understanding and aesthetic experience. Therefore I conclude that the potential meanings of word, as mental results of the three kinds of activities listed above, may accordingly fall into three groups and I suggest three terms for them in this article: perceptional meaning, notional meanings and aesthetic meaning. My idea is induced by the words of English philosopher John Lock:
The regular association of a world and idea is in such a way thereby attaches an ides to a word, the ides being the meaning of the word… It follows that a word has no meaning unless it can be connected to an experience which gives to its use.
3.1. Perceptional Meaning
Perceptional meaning of a word denotes the mental achievement of people’s perceiving activities like seeing, hearing, feeling etc and people often use “literal meaning” to denote perceptional meaning of a word. Perceptional meaning is of very little difference between people with different culture-lingual background. Because all people on this planet (the earth) are living in relatively similar material surroundings and their perceptional activities are similar as well; all of them face the same sun, the same moon, and in the end, the same physical word. The reasons for such a conclusion are as follows:
Generally speaking, the first step for an individual before he can successfully live with it is to get to know the world. The process of getting to know the world through seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting etc is usually termed by philosophers such as John Lock as “perceiving”
| [4] | Scruton, Roger: 1987, A Short History of Modern Philosophy, Pagan Books Corporation, UK. |
[4]
. So I can say the forming process of the perceptional meaning of word is the very process in which people accumulate knowledge about the physical world.
As has been discussed in the previous paragraph, the perceptional meaning of a word reflects the mental achievements of people’s perceiving activities like seeing, hearing, feeling etc. Therefore the meaning about the properties of objects such as length, width and colors etc fall into the category of perceptional meaning. For example, the perceptional meaning of Chinese word“月”denotes the round and bright object that hangs in the sky at night and its properties are the same to every persons living on this planet. In other words the perceptional meaning of the word referring the moon in all languages is identical because the properties of the moon are the same to the perceptions of the people with different cultural and linguistic background.
Even though to a certain object that exists in the physical world different language may give different names, any certain language will earlier or later have an equivalence for that object as in any other language, because all the substantial objects can earlier or later come to the knowledge scope of the people speaking that language.
To take the example of English and Chinese:
Along with the communicating between English people and Chinese people, a lot of words were created in Chinese language as equivalencies of the words in English (or Latin) as soon as the knowledge about basic elements entered the knowledge scope of Chinese people. For example, when the scientist wanted to introduce the basic element radium to Chinese people, they invented a Chinese word “镭”to refer to this object in the physical world and then the perceptional meaning of this word got into the knowledge scope of Chinese people.
Since the existence of the substantial objects such as“镭”is independent to people’s subjective values, opinions and beliefs, the meanings of the words that name the substantial objects are also independent to people’s values, opinions and beliefs. Therefore I use a term “perceptional meaning” to refer to such kind of meaning of a word which denotes an object’s substantial properties which are conveyed in people’s perceptional activities such as seeing, hearing etc.
3.2. Notional Meaning
However, when someone is trying to put the Chinese word “月”in sentence “嫦娥奔月” into English, he should be very careful if he just translates the Chinese word“月”into “the moon”. Because Chinese people have developed many lyric imaginations about the moon and as a result the expression “奔月”in Chinese language bears peculiar cultural meanings which may be unfamiliar to a foreign reader of such a rendering. Because the literal translation mentioned above perhaps can only make the readers of the English rendering puzzled if they know nothing about Chinese tales about the moon and their most likely wonder would be something like: “The Chinese launched a space craft onto the moon before the Apollo Plan?”
Therefore I can say that once used in literary styled texts, the Chinese word “月” has acquired a special meaning which is so unique that it represents a unique “understanding” of Chinese people to the object referred with “月”. Such a meaning is a special one because things as mental achievements of people’s understanding to a certain object usually are comprehended rather than perceived, imagined rather than observed, such as the never-cut-down “tree” on the moon in the beautiful Chinese tale about the moon. However in the west, the moon, the same object in the physical world, is usually “understood” as something related with terrible things like devil by people with western culture background. Therefore to the westerners the scene with a full moon shining in the sky meaning a night with danger. For example, the English expression “moonlight flight” means flitting in the evening. But to most Chinese people the sentence “嫦娥奔月” always tells a very beautiful legend. The moonlight in the mind of Chinese people also means “being purity” as is shown in Chinese word “皎洁” (pure as the moon light). More over, the moon is regarded as their home town by Chinese people, just in the poetic line of Du Fu “露从今夜白，月是故乡明” (The dew looked so bright this dawn, but more than that is the moonlight in my hometown.) All these meanings I list here are as results of Chinese people’s special understanding rather than observation. In other words: facing of the same object hanging and shinning in the sky at night, the “understanding” to it is very different. Therefore I suggest another term for such a special meaning as mental achievement of understanding rather than perceiving of Chinese people: “notional meaning.”
Notional meaning represents the mental achievements of people’s understanding to certain substantial objects like the moon and these mental achievements include beliefs, opinions, and imaginations.
The perceptional meaning of word in any language is universal to peoples with different culture-lingua background; but the notional meaning of a word in language is culturally unique. The reason for this conclusion is as follows: the perceiving activities and accordingly the mental achievement of them of human beings to the physical world is identical, but their understanding may vary in different cultural settings. As result notional meaning of a word has strong cultural color, and a word with notional meaning in some situation can be regarded as a special kind of cultural cipher of the relevant language (Of course such a cultural cipher can be deciphered if people with different cultural background are able to understand the notional meaning conveyed in that language). In other words, notional meaning is culture-specific phenomenon as is defined in the words of Christiane Nord:
A culture-specific phenomenon is thus one that is found to exist in that a particular form or function in only one of the two cultures being compared. This does not mean that the phenomenon exist only in that particular culture. The same phenomenon might be observable in cultures other than the two in question.
| [5] | Nord, Christiane: Translating As a Purposeful Activity, Shanghai Foreign Language Press. |
[5]
.
For example the Chinese word “红豆” (red berry) can be regarded as a cultural cipher denoting the yearning between lover in Chinese culture-lingua.
Just as discussed in the previous paragraph, the Chinese word “红豆” (red berry), once used in literary text, derives notional meaning and in such a situation English word “red berry ” can no longer be its equivalence since the latter can not function as the former. Therefore it can be concluded that if notional meaning is involved, it usually is difficult to realize “functional equivalence”
| [1] | Nida, Eugene A, 1993, Language, Culture and Translating, Shanghai Foreign Language Press. |
[1]
in translating.
3.3. Aesthetic Meaning
In order to analyze the special implications of numbers in the Tang Poems, I now turn to the third meaning that can be conveyed in a word: aesthetic meaning How can we define aesthetic meaning? Firstly let’s quote the definition from https://www.dictionary.com for aesthetics:
the branch of philosophy dealing with such notions as the beautiful, the ugly, the sublime, the comic, etc., as applicable to the fine arts, with a view to establishing the meaning and validity of critical judgments concerning works of art, and the principles underlying or justifying such judgments.
Based on the revelation of the above definition of aesthetics, I hereby boldly define aesthetic meaning as people’s mental achievement (e.g. evoked by poetic lines) which reflects their aesthetic experience about the beauty, the ugliness, the sublime objects, etc.
As will be pointed out, an aesthetic meaning, just as notional meaning of a word, is full of cultural implications. Let’s start our analysis on it from reading the following lines quoted from a well- known Tang poem (Li Bai):
床前明月光，
疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，
低头思故乡。
Abed, I see a silvery light, I wonder if it’s frost aground. Looking up, I find the moon bright; Bowing, in homesickness I’m drowned. (Translation by Xu Yuanchong).
Undoubtedly here the word“月” also refers to the moon orbiting around the earth. But who can say that is all that the poet wants to express by the word“月”here in the poetic lines? In fact the Chinese “月” (the moon) here means much more than that, perhaps the poet’s subtle feeling about the quietness, or missing his family: something I can only name with an abstract noun: aesthetic experience. My conclusion can be confirmed by the words in an article on Chinese Translators Journal:
As is known to everyone, literary text (poetry included) as a type of art conveys aesthetic implications besides linguistic information.
A brief conclusion: In some situations a word in a certain text conveys only the first or perceptional meaning, especially in a text objectively describing the physical world. In some other situations it may convey notional or even aesthetic meaning. It is also possible that a word in the same text can convey more than one meaning.
The opinion I discussed here can be conclude and demonstrated in the following diagram:
Figure 1. Potential meanings of word expressed as reader’s mental activities.
The model I propose here to classify the potential meanings that a word may convey in a certain context as the mental achievements of the creator of the text can also be applied to explain the problems that a North American anthropologist Michael Agar has encountered:
“When you encounter a new language, some things are easy to learn. You just patch on some new lexical items and grammatical form and continue listening and talking. Other things are more difficult, but with little effort, the difficulties from one language to another can be bridged. But some things that come up strike you with their difficulty, their complexity, and their inability to fit into the resources you use to make sense out of the world. (Agar 1991).
Here Michael Agar lists three kinds of things one may encounter in a language: things easy to learn, things that can be learned with a little effort and things that are almost unable to understand. To use the terms suggested in this section: by the first things he refers to perceptional meanings of words in a certain language, which as has been discussed in previous paragraphs are easy to catch by people with different cultural background. By the second things Michael Agar refers to notional meanings, which are understandable to people speaking different languages though with some difficulties. His so-called third things involve aesthetic meanings, to use terms of this thesis; the aesthetic meanings are the most difficult to catch because it is unlikely for people with different culture-lingua background to have identical aesthetic experience to the same object referred by the word in that language.
4. Cultural Implications of Numbers in Chinese Culture and Language
Having discussed the three potential meanings a word may convey in general, I now pay my attention to certain numbers in Chinese language, and their meanings are the focus of my discussion in this short thesis.
I have pointed out that if only perceptional meaning is involved, the meaning of numbers would be the same in any language and culture: to reflect the intrinsic quantity or items of things. But those in Chinese language can be an exception: certain numbers (like “一” “五”“九” “百” “千” “万”etc) in Chinese language may have notional or even aesthetic meanings. And that is why this thesis exists.
Since the notional and aesthetic meaning that can be found in numbers in a certain language have strong cultural color, I call them both “cultural implications” thereafter. The goal of this chapter is to explore the cultural implications of numbers in Chinese culture-lingua and the realization of them in their English translations.
4.1. Notional Meanings of Numbers in Chinese: Symbolism
Numbers as symbols that represent meanings other than telling about the quantity of the items of things convey primarily notional meanings in Chinese culture and Language (Chinese culture-lingua): symbolism.
Notional meaning of certain numbers comes from their special “understanding” of ancient Chinese people that the sequential nature of numbers from 1 to a larger number might be related to creation of things in the real world. For example, many myths use numbers to represent various stages of a creation of things. I say the symbolism in numbers is a kind of demonstrations of numbers’ notional meaning because symbolism functions as result of understanding to the nature of the physical world. The following are the most familiar notional meanings symbolized by numbers in Chinese culture-lingua. Doubtless in such a short thesis it is impossible to explore all numbers that are full of notional meanings in Chinese culture-lingua; I focus only on the most typical of them: “一” (one) “二” (two) “三” (three) “五” (five) “九” (nine) and “十” (ten) since they are generally believed to be the most typical in their cultural implications.
4.1.1. “一” (One)
The cultural implications of “一” (one) in Chinese culture-lingua includes the following: being a whole, being a complete unity, singularity. Since in the traditional Chinese culture “一” (one) is regarded as the original state of the universe in which there is no differentiation, no distinguishing between objects, no distinction between oneself and others, it de facto functions as the symbolism of Tao (道).
According to Laozi, Tao is the underlying power of creation that cannot be named or known and it is what makes the word function. “One” is created by Dao and can be seen as the original form of the universe. English word “universe” has a morpheme “uni”, which also means “one”. This is an interesting linguistic coincidence and this linguistic phenomenon confirms my opinion that both in Chinese culture and in western culture (we use this word in its very broad meaning) I can find that the ancient people had a similar effort to understand the world as a whole. But to the westerners the word “one” represents “logos”, which means language, idea or the law governing the universe. However in Chinese lingua-culture,“一” (one) does not only represent the unique understanding of Chinese people to the essence of the universe but also the “oneness” of humanity and nature. Such an opinion is rooted in the mind of ancient Chinese, at least in the mind of the scholars.
4.1.2. “二” (Two)
In Chinese culture-lingua the cultural implications of “二” (two) includes: duality and the state of the universe in which differentiation emerges and opposites develop, such as male/female, positive/negative, light/dark, external/internal, self/others, etc, but most of all it symbolizes the complementary “yin” (阴) and “yang” (阳), the two coexisting and contradicting forces in the universe from which everything was born.
4.1.3. “三” (Three)
The notional meaning of “三” (three) may represents something that is created from a harmonious condition or from two opposite things like a child from male/female. And it also symbolizes ancient Chinese people’s understanding of the time and space structure of the universe: 三光 “the three lights”: the sun, the moon, and the stars that shine the world; “三才”: the heaven, the earth and human being;“三生”: the life in the past, the one at present and the one in the future.
4.1.4. “五” (Five)
As is known to everyone, the first mental activity of an individual is to explore the physical world around him and the result of such activity (perceiving as is termed by many philosophers) is knowledge. In the same way, the first and most basic content of culture as collective mental achievements is knowledge too. Therefore the first question for any primitive culture is: what elements compose the universe? The answers vary from one to another. Ancient Chinese people held the opinion that the following five are the components of the word: metal, wood, water, fire and earth. This simple and primitive knowledge gave the Chinese people the impression that “five” might represent certain law of the world. They then developed a belief that this number “五” (five) conveys mystic meanings. So “five” was granted a notional meaning because it then represented a sort of understanding rather than perceiving of ancient Chinese people to the world and as a result“五”to the ancient Chinese people represented certain law of the world. Even Chinese language itself can confirm my conclusion: in Chinese there are expressions like “五味” (five flavors) even though the flavors to human taste may be more than five. In Chinese medicine, an important component of Chinese culture, only five internal organs are listed, even though modern anatomy has proven the number of the internal organs is more than five. Even though “五” (five) originally represented only the quantity of things in the physical world people perceived (observed), it was added notional meaning representing the special understanding of ancient Chinese to the essence of the world. Therefore “五” is no longer a pure number as “five” in English language; It acquired notional meaning and accordingly became a cultural symbol in Chinese culture-lingua.
4.1.5. “九” (Nine)
If ancient Chinese people regarded the sequence of numbers from 1 to a larger number represent the creation of things in the real world, then the number “九” is at the later position in the sequence and it naturally symbolizes the complex stage of the development of the universe or the immortality of things. For example in Chinese culture-lingua “九天” (the ninth heaven) represents Chinese people’s understanding to the structure of the cosmos: the earth“地” (a huge square continent) is stationed in the center of the universe and the heaven“天”is arched spheres covering the earth“地”, “九天”being the ninth and the highest of the spheres. These opinions in Chinese culture obviously are as results of imaginations rather than observation; they represent the results of the ancient Chinese special understanding (not perceiving) to the physical world. Therefore “九天”in Chinese culture-lingua conveys notional meaning and functions as an important culture symbol. In addition to that, the ancient Chinese people also regarded “九”as a symbol of the whole regime and “九州” (the nine states) accordingly turned to represent China.
4.1.6. “十” (Ten)
Because its subjective nature I say notional meaning of numbers vary from one culture-lingua to another. To make this clear let’s look at the difference in the understanding of “ten” between a Chinese person and one from a English speaking nation: To the former, “十” (ten) means not only a number denoting items of things, but also one symbolizing completeness, soundness as in “霸气十足” (rather aggressive) “十全十美” (definitely perfect); “ten” to the latter, however, may play different roles.
In conclusion I should say that in Chinese traditional culture these numbers are so important that they represent the knowledge (perceptional) and opinion (notional) system of Chinese culture: “one” represents the universe; “two” refers to the complementary “yin” (阴) and “yang” (阳); “three” means “the three lights” (三光): the sun, the moon, and the stars that shine the world; The “five elements” (五行) explains all phenomena and “the six books” (六经) refer to the whole intelligence. In Chinese culture-lingua the beliefs about the peculiar meanings of certain numbers (notional meanings) also have developed into superstition of them: the Chinese concept of numerology in ancient China. The Chinese concept of numerology is based on mystical beliefs, the common premise of which is that certain numbers are associated with good or evil. The superstition of numbers is undoubtedly a negative aspect in Chinese traditional culture and ought to be discarded. But the influence of the beliefs about numbers’ peculiar implications (notional meaning) cannot be ignored.
4.2. Aesthetic Meaning of Numbers in Chinese Poetry: As Literary Archetypes
The aesthetic meaning of certain numbers is the least known and I find it very hard to collect enough materials to support my conclusion that certain numbers can convey special cultural implications in Chinese language: a unique culture-lingua phenomenon. Especially the third meaning of numbers, aesthetic meaning, as a kind of meaning full of cultural color, is the most important thing in this thesis in which the Tang Poems and their translations are concerned.
While I am reading the Tang Poems, I find that the numbers are also those that are full of cultural implications in Chinese culture-lingua and most frequently appear in Chinese classic poetry especially in the Tang Poems, such as “one” (一) “two” (二) “three” (三) “nine” (九) “hundred” (百) “thousand” (千) and “ten thousand” (万). And these numbers employed in Poetry appear usually in the form of numeral expressions such as“百丈冰” (hundred “zhang” iceberg) “千秋雨” (thousand-autumn-rain) “千里云峰” (thousand- cloud-mountains) “千岩万壑” (thousands of rocks and channels) “万重山” (ten thousand mountains) etc, therefore they undoubtedly have become literary archetypes in Chinese literature.
Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that in Chinese poetry numeral expressions convey not only perceptional meanings but also aesthetic meanings because numbers in traditional Chinese culture (especially Taoism in which numbers have affluent cultural implications) has strong influence on Chinese poets, who accordingly developed the habit of employing numeral expressions in their poems as an aesthetic preference. As a result the literary texts containing numbers acquired their aesthetic meaning.
The similar conclusion can be found in the words of Christane Nord:
(Certain numbers in classic Chinese poetry) “ not only describe the real world, but also motivate personal insights about reality by describing an alternative or fictional world … (their) expressive function … can produce a peculiar aesthetic or poetic on its readers.”
| [5] | Nord, Christiane: Translating As a Purposeful Activity, Shanghai Foreign Language Press. |
[5]
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Since the aesthetic function of certain numbers is generated in the influence of Laozi and Taoist thoughts that have given impact on Chinese classic poetry, I think it is the most valuable thing in Taoism in traditional Chinese culture. Just as in his famous words
“Dao creates one; one creates two; two creates three and then three creates all, Laozi’
| [3] | Lao Tzu: 1977, Tao Te Ching, Wordsworth Editions Limited. |
[3]
initiative in employing numbers to describe the essence of nature
” gave profound influence on Chinese culture. And this influence in the end nourished the aesthetics oriented habit of many Chinese poets’ eulogizing attitude to nature from employing numbers in the Tang Poems.
The best example for this conclusion is the poem “Drinking Alone by Moonlight” (“月下独酌”) by Li Bai:
花间一釜酒
独酌无相亲
举杯邀明月
对影成三人
(An arbor of flowers and a kettle of wine; Atlas! In the bowers no companion is mine. Then the moon sheds her rays on my goblet and me, And my shadow betrays we’re a party of three! (Translated by Herbert A. Giles).
In this poem, Li Bai talks about a kind of relationship that he's setting up with nature (his surrounding): in the flowers and with a jug of wine and he is bored for being alone (“独”: symbolized by “one”) with the moonlight. Suddenly, after a few drinks, he realizes he's not really alone after all. He suddenly sees his shadow (the second) and the moon (the third) and then feels lonely no longer. He makes a toast to the moon though the moon has never known how to drink; he treats the shadow as a friend though the shadow can do nothing but follow his body. In this poem of Li Bai I can find that the Taoist notion of being interconnected of all things in nature is evident. The numbers “one, two and three” in Laozi’s
Dao creates one; one creates two; two creates three and then three creates all | [3] | Lao Tzu: 1977, Tao Te Ching, Wordsworth Editions Limited. |
[3]
are meaningful because of their philosophic implications. But they can generate strong aesthetic experience in the readers’ mind about the scene in Li Bai’s poem only because of their aesthetic meaning. By skillfully calling on the magic force of numbers “一” (one), “二” (two) and “三” (three), Li Bai in this poem is really looking at nature here as a companion in a beautiful way and “nature was personalized as a aesthetic object.” In another poem of Li Bai’, the grandiose of nature is depicted by employing numeral expressions and another kind of relationship between man (the poet) and nature is set up in the sharp contradicting of the large and the small numbers: “千” (thousand) v. “一” (one); “二” (two) v. “万“ (ten thousand).
朝辞白帝彩云间，
千里江陵一日还。
两岸猿声啼不住，
轻舟已过万重山。
In the bright dawn clouds I left Baidicheng; A thousand li to Jingling only takes a day I hear the increassant cry of monkeys from the banks; My light barge has passe countless folds of hills (Translated by Yang Xianyi) .
From reading this poem of Li Bai, I can once again conclude that he is one of the poets who sang not only for nature, but also human being euphorically. Li Bai himself was something of grandiose as nature in his poems. He was really one of the great poets in The Tang Dynasty.
The magic force of certain numbers in a poetic text in Chinese language can also be observed in the process of translating poems in other languages into Chinese. For example: once“一” (one) is used in poems, it can generate magic force of aesthetic function.
This can be observed in the Chinese translation of the following English poem written by William Blake: To See the World in a Grain of Sand.
Original
To see the world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower; Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.
This poem does not contain any number in the real sense though the infinite article a/an may mean “one’. The poet in the original expresses his special understanding and aesthetic experience to the relation of man and the universe: very similar to the “oneness of man and nature” (天人合一) in Chinese traditional culture. And this conclusion can be confirmed by the words of Feng Huanzhan (translated by myself):
His (William Blake’s) poem, though in different words, conveys similar opinions as the one by a Chinese Buddhist in the Song Dynasty in his lines: “To see the Nature in the small garden, and the Eternity in an autumn morn’”. No matter how great the difference between poems in different era and nation may be, the essence of them stays the same: the suggestiveness in them.
Therefore the conclusion can be reached that the content and style of the original can be successfully expressed in the following translation of Chinese in which I intentionally use many “一”s and the Chinese version expresses the significance of the original very well, if not better:
一花一世界
一沙一天国
一瞬含千古
无垠在君握
In the Chinese translation of this poem I intentionally employ many “一”s because of the peculiar implications of these“一”s can convey in Chinese language. Because numeral expressions in Chinese language have been granted much notional and aesthetic meanings in them that in some situations Chinese translations can express the poems’ meanings of the original in other languages.
How can such a conclusion be reached? My analysis is as follows:
Among the numbers that are often employed by ancient Chinese poets, “one” (“一”) may be the most powerful one because of its cultural implications: the oneness of man and nature. As has been discussed in the previous section, “一” (one) in Chinese culture symbolizes singularity, a state of the world in which there is no differentiation, no distinction between oneself and others in this world. To use the term of this thesis, “一” (one) bears a notional meaning that the world is as a complete unity as was understood by most ancient Chinese scholars. As a result in classic Chinese philosophy, the concept of “一” (one) presents wholeness. Advocates of Taoism usually embrace simplicity, believing that all things are generated from“一”and there would be no varieties in the world without “一” (one) as representation of the wholeness of the word. Zhuangzi even went further to hold the opinion that“一” (one) represents the oneness of nature and man. And his beliefs in the long history ancient China gradually nourished Chinese styled aesthetic experience in nature.
The similar conclusion can also be observed in the words of a famous scholar and professor Wang Yichuan, even though his words is about the aesthetic experience in general sense, his conclusion is applicable to confirm the suggestiveness that numeral expressions can convey in Chinese classic poetry:
“The subtlety of beauty is hard to express with words…it can be intuited, but it’s not able to convey with language…it is awake to the oneness of man and nature…”
4.3. A Brief Explanation
Then how to explain this special literary phenomenon in Chinese lingua-culture? The only explanation is that only in Chinese poetry especially in the Tang Poems a number can convey aesthetic meaning. Then what led ancient Chinese people to have special beliefs in certain numbers (these numbers were regarded as the demonstrations of the law of nature) ? Or to use the terms of this thesis: how some special numbers in Chinese language acquired their special cultural implications (notional meaning and aesthetic meaning) in Chinese culture and why certain numbers in Chinese can play such a important role in Chinese classic poetry, especially in the Tang Poems?
Now I will focus on trying to answer these questions.
We think the reasons are hidden in the fact that Laozi has deep influence on Chinese culture and language. My detailed analysis on the above conclusion is as following:
The first important thinker who granted special implications to numbers in Chinese language is Laozi, whose influence on the development of Chinese culture can not be overestimated. Therefore, the following words of him has become a cultural puzzle and I can say that many important ideas in Chinese culture is developed from the interpretations of these words (my translation):
“Dao creates One; One creates Two; Two creates Three and then Three creates all”.
Taoism and Chinese culture, and many of its features cannot be understood unless seen in a larger context. For example, the thought of naturalness and non-action of the early thinkers is but one reaction to the social and political situations in the ancient China.
Now I will attempt to explain why some numbers are so frequently used in Chinese classic poetry. Or in other words: Are there any special reasons for the poets to embrace such an aesthetic preference? How did numbers in Chinese language acquire its aesthetic meanings in Chinese poetry?
My answer to them is based on the following reasoning:
Laozi philosophically employs numbers to denote the essence of nature and philosophically influenced Taoism; Taoism insists a eulogizing attitude to nature and calls on an idle and free-loving style of living in nature; Therefore Laozi, as founder of the school of Taoism, gave strong influence on Chinese classic poets. Because of the importance of Laozi to Chinese culture and his employment of numbers to explain the cosmos or nature, it is understandable that numbers derived much peculiar significance in Chinese culture and language.
The reason are hidden in the fact that in the ancient Chinese society many ancient poets (they are also officials) stayed loyal to the severe Confucian restraints and doctrines in public, but in their private life, they pursued casual and free life. Because that was the only way they could escape from the unsecured life in the officialdom. And as a result Chinese ancient poets who pursued excursion from eulogizing nature developed an aesthetic preference of employing certain numbers in the poetry. For example Wei Wei, the most typical of the those who have been influence by Taoism and Chan (禅宗), the latter being developed from the former under the development Buddhism, deserved the title of “poet of Chan” (禅诗人).
In fact the employment of certain special numbers in literature was started by Zhuangzi, a follower of Laozi’ Thought. Unlike most other followers of Taoism who developed it into mystic practice, Zhuangzi valued the freedom of will and eulogized it in his prose metaphorically: (we quote the translation of Lin Yutang).
“In the Northern Ocean there is a fish, called the k’un, I don not know how many thousand li in size. This k’un changes into a bird, called p’eng. Its back is I do not know many thousand li in breadth. When it is moved, it flies, its wings obscuring the sky like clouds. When on a voyage, this bird prepares to start for the Southern Ocean, the celestial lake. And in the records of the Marvels we read that when the p’eng flies southwards, the water is smitten for space of three thousand li around, while the bird mounts upon a great wind to a height of ninety thousand li, for a flight of six months duration…”
In this short paragraph of Zhuangzi’s prose, I can find these numeral expressions are purposefully used by him. And if we pay more attention to the numbers employed in this prose we can also find that these numbers are not only those full of cultural implications in traditional Chinese culture (see the second chapter of this thesis) but are just those that are most frequently employed in the Chinese classic poetry, especially in the Tang Poems:
“One thousand li”
“Three thousand li”
“Six months”
“Nine thousand li”
Since Zhuangzi is the first and the most important prose writer in Chinese literature, his writings and imaginations enrich Chinese poetry in an immeasurable manner and “give a philosophic sanction to whatever is in the idle, free-loving, poetic vagabond Chinese soul” (Lin Yutang).
Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that in Laozi’s words, the numbers were used philosophically. But Zhuangzi turned the direction and employed numbers literarily. Therefore both his eulogizing attitude to nature and his style of writing influenced Chinese poets. And then the numeral expressions he often employed became archetypes in Chinese literature, especially in the Tang Poems. Then how to explain the fact that Chinese ancient poets pursued excursion from their official life by eulogizing nature in their poems? What made nature so important to Chinese poets who depicted and eulogized nature with the peculiar aesthetic technique of using certain numeral expressions frequently?
My answer is as follows: it’s because of the depressing social situation for the scholars in the officialdom in ancient Chinese society and that determined Zhuangzi’s (he insisted living an idle and free-loving life) thought and style of writing were lauded and followed by many Chinese ancient poets.
Or in other words: Zhuangzi developed Laozi’s habit of employing certain numbers into a aesthetic preference and because of his deep influence in Chinese literature his style of using certain numeral expressions is accepted as an aesthetic technique and is followed by the poets after him.
Then why is nature so special to Chinese ancient poets?
I think it is because of the unique attitude they held to nature and this can be confirmed by the words of Lin Jizhong: (my translation).
The general attitude all Chinese people hold to nature is a harmonious and friendly one; it’s peaceful rather than aggressive. Even though I cannot be so sure that this is the representative attitude of all ancient Chinese people, I insist that this is the attitude the scholars in the Tang Dynasty held to nature.
My reasons for such a conclusion are as follows:
Even though it is a universal phenomenon that ancient people in all primitive cultures held the opinion that nature has its will, Chinese people’s attitude to nature is unique, i.e., nature stays to be a mystic and grandiose existence worth fear, chant and eulogizing. The western culture, however, took on different rail in its development: since the time Christianity was introduced to the Romans, the European people began to believe in God, the only personified power that transcends not only the physical universe but also the humanity. Therefore the grandiose used to be believed to belong to Nature was granted to God. Since then nature was consequently “peeled off” the function as super will that governs all. God was created for all glory; nature was regarded as lifeless machine. In the western culture, God is Provider and Lord and Judge; nature became “nature”. God is feared and praised; nature is studied and dissected, studied as a machine and dissected into atoms and quarks as is done in modern natural science.
Therefore in the west, the best poems are for God or humanity (Whitman). But the most beautiful poetic lines in Chinese poetry are for nature (Li Bai). As a result it is understandable to say that the most valuable thing in Taoism is its nourishing of aesthetics oriented habit of eulogizing nature. Since some special numbers in the mind of ancient Chinese people represented the essence of nature, the beliefs in numbers condensed and precipitated in Chinese people’s “collective unconsciousness because they had become impersonal and identical to all individuals” (Carl Gustav Jung).
That is to say, these beliefs conveyed in certain numbers in Chinese language in the end turned into literary archetypes and resulted into an special vital resonance (气韵) in Chinese poetry. These literary archetypes can be found especially in the Tang Poems, in which you may encounter expressions like “一片月”“百丈冰”“千秋雨”“千里云峰”“千岩万壑”“万重山”, “万古愁” and many others in which certain numbers play key roles in forming the vital resonance. Therefore I can go further to say that these archetypes with certain numeral expressions are influential to Chinese aestheticism itself. And to some extent this conclusion can be confirmed by the words of a German scholar K-H Pohl:
Thus, the first ideal of traditional Chinese aesthetics is to achieve a degree of artistic perfection in the work of art which, when imbued with a "vital resonance" (气韵), makes it seem like a work of nature, and yet conveys a sense of spiritual mastery. A second important notion in Chinese aesthetics is that of openness and suggestiveness. This also has a linguistic root: the … ambiguity of certain words in classic Chinese language, lending themselves to openness and suggestiveness. In terms of aesthetics, the idea of suggestiveness… in the dictum of the Tang poet and critic Sikong Tu that poetry should convey "images beyond images", and "scenes beyond scenes".
Naturally the numbers which are frequently employed in the Tang Poems fall into the category of those can lend “ themselves to openness and suggestiveness” and generate "images beyond images", and "scenes beyond scenes" in the mind of the readers.
The suggestiveness that certain numbers in Chinese poetry can stimulate in the mind of the readers is their aesthetic meaning of numbers. I reiterate the aesthetic meaning of numbers here because it is the most important conception I am concerned in this thesis.
A brief conclusion: as has been discussed in the previous section, in ancient China the poets (most of them are officials) had to follow the severe depressing social life in the officialdom. High office was hazardous to them in the ancient Chinese society, as is shown in the Chinese saying “to attend a prince is to wait on a tiger” . For example, important poets in the Tang Dynasty like Li Bai (李白), Du Fu (杜甫) and Bai Juyi (白居易) etc, had unhappy years of life in the officialdom. Only in their private life, could they have excursion from writing poems. The eulogizing of the beautiful scenes in nature in fact is the eulogizing of individual freedom and the will of them. Another interesting phenomenon in the Tang Poems confirms my conclusion about the poets’ eulogizing attitude to nature: in their poems about the beauty and grandiose of nature, numbers like “hundred”, “thousand” and “ten thousand” are very common to see: “百丈冰” (hundred “zhang” iceberg) “千秋雨” (thousand-autumn-rain) “千里云峰” (thousand-cloud-mountains) “千岩万壑” (thousands of rocks and channels) “万重山” (ten thousand mountains).
Before ending this section, I want to make it clear that the model that distinguishes the three implications of certain numbers employed in Chinese classic poetry is the key to analyzing the translating of them into English. To provide answers to some questions that arise in translating process is the goal of the third chapter of this thesis.
5. The Realization of Numbers' Cultural Implications in the English Translations
Based on the conclusion the potential meanings of certain numbers are conveyed in some Chinese classic poetry including the Tang Poems, I now turn to another topic of this thesis: The difficulties that arise in translating these numbers into English and the options in realizing their cultural implications in the target language English.
Just as in any other language, numbers in Chinese have perceptional meanings that denote the quantity of things. But once used in certain numeral expressions they can convey notional or aesthetic meanings, respectively denoting the results of people’s understanding and aesthetic experience to the substantial objects in the world. Since the latter two of the three, notional and aesthetic meaning, reflect a peculiar cultural and linguistic phenomenon of Chinese language and culture, one question is unavoidable: can they be expressed in other language like English? Or: can Chinese poems that are full of these peculiar notional and aesthetic meanings be successfully translated into English? Now I start my discussions from proposing a model to explain why difficulties arise in translating Chinese classic poetry into English.
5.1. A Model: What Makes Translating Difficult
It is universally known that a science report is easier to translate than a poem, because the nature of the text determines how difficult the relevant translating activity would be. Naturally it’s impossible for such a short paper to cover all things in the following paragraphs. So I will concentrate only on analyzing how the meanings of words in poems affect translating activity and why translating literary text such as a poem is much more difficult than translating a science report if both the content and the style must be kept. In other words: I will analyze why some problems arise in the translating process when the original conveys cultural implications (notional meaning and/or aesthetic meaning). Naturally the special numbers employed in Chinese classic poetry fall into such a category.
As is known to every one that in the situation in which notional and aesthetic meanings are involved, even Eugene Nida, an advocate of realizing functional equivalence in translating, admits that the successful realization of equivalent in the target language is questionable because of cultural difference involved:
Equivalence is therefore to be defined in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language. This response can never be identical, for the cultural and historical settings are too different. (Nida, 1969).
What makes translating a certain text in German language into English less difficult than into Chinese? What makes translating a science report more difficult than a poetic text? The first question may involve the “closeness” between languages and cultures. That is to say, the difference between English culture and German culture is less than that between Chinese culture and English Culture. Or in other words: the difference between English language and German language is closer than that between Chinese language and English language. Therefore translating between English and German is less difficult that that between English and Chinese.
But the second question remains unanswered: even between the same two languages like Chinese and English, a translator may find he is confronted with far much more difficulties to keep the implications of a Tang poem in its English translation than he is translating a natural science report into English.
Why so? My conclusion is that it is the nature of the original text that affects the grade of the hardness in the translating process. In other words: what meaning is involved in the original determines how difficult the relevant translating process can be. With the potential meanings of the original under consideration, I demonstrate my opinion about the grade of hardness involved in translating in the following diagram:
PM ˂ NM ˂ AM
PM: Text expressing perceptional meaning; NM: text expressing notional meaning; AM: text expressing aesthetic meaning.
In other words: a literary text is the most difficult text to translate compared with perceptional or notional meanings. In order to explain the different grades of the hardness involved in translating process, here I suggest a model that is demonstrated in the following diagram:
Figure 2. Three potential meanings in language A are presented in yellow while those in language B in blue; The different size of their intersections (in green) denotes different level of the common content shared by the two meaning systems.
For convenience, I regard the three kinds of potential meanings conveyed in a certain text as whole and call it “ meaning system”. In the diagram, the three circles on the left represent the meaning system of Chinese culture-lingua and the three on the right represent the meaning system of English culture-lingua.
As have been labeled in the diagram, each circle represents one kind of meaning in the same meaning system: the perceptional (knowledge), notional (beliefs etc) or the aesthetic meaning (aesthetic experience). In the diagram, three intersections are drawn to demonstrate the common content shared by the two meaning systems, respectively being termed as “co-knowledge”, “consensus” and “aesthetic consonance”. Obviously the areas of the three intersections are different, which expresses the opinion discussed in the previous paragraph: it’s easy for people with different cultural background to share co-knowledge; to form consensus is possible but with difficulties; it’s the most difficult thing for people with difficult culture-lingual background to have similar aesthetic consonance, if not impossible, the reason being that the latter two are subjective in their nature.
The most important implications of the model here are summarized in the following paragraphs:
Since people express their individuals’ mental achievements (perceptional, notional aesthetic) orally or in the form of written text in a language, translating in fact is the process of communicating between people speaking different languages. This means that how two meaning systems can be in common (as demonstrated in the size of intersections in the diagram) determines how successful the translating activity between the two relevant languages can be. The reason is that translating is in fact the process of transmitting the meaning from the original to the target meaning system.
Based on the conclusions derived from my model for explaining translating operation, it’s possible now for me to answer the questions proposed in the preface of this thesis (the sixth paragraph): what makes translating some kind of texts easier than others:
A scientific report usually only conveys knowledge about the physical world (perceptional meaning) and the perceptional meaning conveyed in a science report can usually be put into the target language, because the physical world is identical to the perceiving process of all human beings and as a result co-knowledge between people with different culture (and language) background can always be reached as is demonstrated in the diagram on the previous page: the circle on the bottom being intersection of the two meaning systems. The objectiveness of a word’s perceptional meaning determines that it can be conveyed in any language; that is to say, if only perceptional meanings were involved, translating between any two languages can be successfully done without causing misapprehension between people speaking different language. Therefore, if translating can be defined as the process of realizing the meaning of text in the source language into texts in the target language and only perceptional meaning is involved, the target text would always be equivalence of the original, i.e., the realization of equivalence is always possible. In the case of translating numbers in a certain context, the conclusion above means that literal translating is always valid in realizing the perceptional meaning of them (quantity of things) in the translated text.
However, texts about humanities like philosophy usually are concerned with ideas, beliefs or values that fall into the second category of the meaning system: notional meaning. Translating activity that involves notional meaning can be less easy because “consensus” is less likely to reach than the co-knowledge between people with different linguistic and cultural background, as is demonstrated in the diagram. It is possible for people with different cultural background to have similar understanding to the same object or event in the physical world, i.e. to form “consensus ” about their notional meaning. But to do it needs time for people with difficult cultural background to adopt the way foreign people apply to understand the same substantial object. For example, in the western culture 13 is a number that is “understood” as unluckiness (notional meaning). Only after western culture has had some influence on Chinese people, can the notional meaning of “13” (unluckiness) in the west culture-lingua have become “consensus” between the two meaning systems: Chinese lingual-culture and English lingua-culture. Therefore translating about notional meaning is harder than that about perceptional meaning because the translator usually is confronted with the problem: whether a “consensus” has been established between people with the source culture background and those with the target culture background.
The difficulties that arise in translating poetry can also be explained with this model: Compared with the possibility of sharing co-knowledge and establishing consensus, it is the most unlikely thing to have similar aesthetic experience between peoples with different cultural background to the same referent in poetic text. In other words: aesthetic “consonance” is the most difficult thing to reach, especially for people from two independently developed cultures like English culture and Chinese culture because aesthetic experience is most subjective in its nature. Since it is most unlikely that people with different linguistic and cultural background to have identical aesthetic experience. Therefore it is most unlikely for translators to realize the aesthetic significance in the target language successfully: translating poetic texts is the most difficult.
5.2. Translating the Tang Poems with Numbers as a Purposed Activity
Having discussed why difficulties arise in translating process in general, I now focus on discussing the realization of aesthetic meaning of certain numbers in the Tang Poems in the process of translating them into English. That is the second part of theme of this thesis: how to deal with these numbers as culture symbols in the translating process.
Let me start my discussion from analyzing an example in which only perceptional meaning (the first stage in the meaning system) is involved. Here I take a stanza From J. W. von Goethe’s Faust (the original is in German) as an example
| [8] | Peter, Bantoan: 1998, J. W. von Goethe’s: Faust (first part), translated and with introductions, Dual-language edition, London, UK. |
[8]
:
The original
Wenn ich sechs Hengste zahlen kan
Sind ihre Kraefte nicht die mine ?
Ich renne zu und bin ein rechter Mann
Als haette ich vierundzwanzig Beine.
The English translation by Peter of this stanza is as follows:
If I can buy six stallions
Is not their strength mine own?
I race along, I am a splendid man
As if I had two dozen legs.
“Sechs” in German language is the equivalence of “six” in English and “vierundzwanzig” means “twenty four”. Since both the numeral expressions in the two versions denote the quantity of the legs of stallion (Hengste), the literal translation of the numbers will cause no distortion to the meaning of the poet. To use the terms of this thesis: the numbers in this example convey only perceptional meaning. Therefore I can conclude that the numeral expressions in this stanza can be literally translated in any other language in the world since they convey only perceptional meaning, which as has been discussed previously is identical to all language and culture.
Here in this example one can find that the numeral expressions can be literally and successfully be put into the target language (English) without causing distortion to the original meaning of the poem (perceptional meaning). In other words, literally translation is successful in transmitting the meanings of the original into the target language.
However, as will be observed in the following examples, if cultural implications (by which I mean notional meaning and aesthetic meaning) are involved, the translating process becomes difficult. To use the generally accepted words, the most difficult thing in translating is to deal with the words that are full of cultural color: cultural symbols.
As have been discussed in the previous chapter, there are some special numbers in the Tang Poems that are de facto such kind of culture symbols since they convey meanings that belong only to Chinese culture. Then how to deal with them? What possible techniques are there for a translator to choose from?
Professor Li Yunxing in his book lists five models as options of dealing with culture symbols: the Go-ahead model; the Block model; the Annotation model; the Integration model; the Adaptation model.
According to professor Li, the second model and the fifth model may block the original culture out of the target culture while the first, the third and the forth model can push forward the communicating between cultures. Then what are the advantages and shortcomings for them? The answer can be found in the following discussions:
The Italians have a saying that poetry translations are like mistresses: those that are faithful are not beautiful, while those that are beautiful are not faithful. This undoubtedly is not serious statement about translating process, but it tells a dilemma a translator may encounter: being faithful means producing a translated text that is a natural one to the target readers. But I think there should be more than one option in translating the same original text, sine the aims of translating vary from one translator to the other. Therefore I think one option is to treat translating as a purposeful activity to nurture the western readers’ understanding and their affinities about traditional culture including the cultural implications in the Tang Poems. One of the most important factors determining the purpose of translation is the addressee, or the intended receiver of target text.
| [2] | Baker, B. 2000, In Other Words: A Course on translation. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press. |
[2]
Therefore, once translating is regarded as a purposeful activity, I think any translating technique that can transfer the original cultural implications into the target text the best is an ideal option. So is the case of translating these numbers in the Tang Poems in the 21
st when the western readers are seeking to discover the value of ecological consciousness hidden in traditional Chinese culture especially in Taoism and is suggested in the special cultural implications:
More and more scholars, western and eastern, attempt to prescribe a possible remedy of Taoism nature to what is called social maladies believed to be inevitably brought about by the double-edge (modern civilization).
From the discussion in the previous chapters such a conclusion can be reached: the concept of harmonious human-nature relation is aesthetically depicted and implied in some Tang Poems, especially in the unusually frequent employment of certain numbers by Chinese poets. This can typically be found in one poem of Li Bai (Drinking Alone by Moonlight“月下独酌”), In his poem, he talks about a kind of relationship that he's setting up with nature (his surrounding): in the flowers and with a jug of wine and he is bored for being alone (“独”: symbolized by “one”) with the moonlight. From using these numbers a special relation is set between the poet and his surroundings. Very few translators have paid enough attention to the deep cultural symbolism in these simple numbers. Consequently these numbers usually are improperly discarded in the translated version, for example in the translation of Herbert A. Giles:
An arbor of flowers and a kettle of wine;
Atlas! In the bowers no companion is mine.
Then the moon sheds her rays on my goblet and me,
And my shadow betrays we’re a party of three!
I admit that Herbert A. Giles has succeeded in both conveying the brevity of the original poem and retaining rhyme and romantic color. However, in the original we can see the evolutionary development of his feeling to the setting he belongs to: he suddenly sees his shadow and the moon and then feels lonely no longer. Naturally that is a peaceful and harmonious relation between the man (the poet: one) and the shadow (the second) and then the moon (the third), respectively symbolized by the sequential order from one to three. But in the translation of Giles these numbers are not retained. If the goal of translating is transmit the deep cultural implications conveyed by these numbers this revision fails to reach this purpose. Even though it may be difficult for the western readers to “taste” such theses cultural implications in the numbers, I think there are some techniques to help them “jump over” such a cultural gap.
Then some people may question my conclusion from asking: how can you be so sure that the poets are writing poems for the intention of depicting the conception of human-nature relation?
I think even that’s not the case, we can still advocate that translating be regarded as purposeful activity to transmit cultural implications, as is confirmed by the following words:
Even if a source text has been written without any particular purpose or intention, the translation is always addressed to some audience and is this intended to have some function for the readers.
Consequently, in order to response to the increasing demand of the western readers to know Chinese culture, any model that can realize this purpose is de facto an ideal option even though such a translating process is sometimes criticized as imposing the meanings of the original (perceptional, notional or aesthetic) to the English language and culture. As has been pointed out, I have adopted the opinion that translating has to be purposeful activity as Christiane Nord says:
Translating means producing a functional text in a lingua-culture T (= target text) that is needed for specific communicative purposes by processing the information given in a previous text produced in a different lingua-culture S (= source text) …if the originals have significance we generally require that their images also have the same significance.” (Christane Nord: Translating as Purposeful Activity).
For example, if the purpose of translating is to “export” the cultural implications of certain numbers to the western readers, then the lines in Tang Poem“千山鸟飞绝，万径人踪灭”can be literally translated as “there is not a bird in a thousand mountains and not a man’s footprint on ten thousand paths”, as many translators do. The numbers in the original are retained and translated as “
one thousand mountains” and “
ten thousand paths”
| [6] | Yang Xianyi: 2002, A Choice Selection of Ancient Poems: Tang Poem. |
[6]
in this translation.
Some people strongly criticize such kind of translation, arguing that the poet’s aesthetic implication has not been kept because the numbers in this translation are surprising to the readers of the English version of this poem. These critics argue that “one thousand and ” “ten thousand” in English language act as nothing but mathematic figures representing accurate quantity of things and conveys no aesthetic implications. However, according to the theory of Christine Nord, the above critics has improperly ignored the fact that:
The openness (in the meaning) specific to literary texts, however, allows for various interpretations at once, making (equivalence requirement in translating) not only impossible to meet but also undesirable. The process of text comprehension and interpretation inevitably leads to different results by different translators. To my mind, this is not at all a bad thing, since different readers will interpret the original differently, translators have to right to translate their interpretation of the text.
Therefore I think it reasonable to hold that if the very purpose of the translator is to intentionally nourish western readers’ aesthetic experience in reading these special numbers employed in the Tang Poems, (that naturally should be since the environmental problems are getting severe all over the world and a new human-nature relation ought to be established) then the Go-ahead model of translating is undoubtedly an ideal option as purposed activity to “export” the special cultural implications (both notional and aesthetic meaning) in the Tang Poems to English culture and language. And accordingly to transmit the aesthetic suggestiveness hidden in the special numbers in the Tang Poems is a proper response to such a demand. In fact this is the only way the most valuable intellectual contributions in Chinese traditional culture, the advocating of human-nature harmony in some beautiful Tang Poems can be cognized, appreciated and absorbed in other cultures. Because the 21st century is an era in which the interest of western readers is shifting to traditional Chinese culture, especially in the Tang Poems, as is proved in the words of American Literary scholar John Derbyshire:
The glorious tradition of Chinese verse will continue…No doubt there will be an awakening, a hundred or five hundred years from now— the tradition will revivify. Until then we must rest content with what we have, and be thankful we have so much, and that it has been transmitted to us, across mountains and oceans, across revolutions and wars, across languages and cultures, with so much— so very much!— loving care.
5.3. Rethinking on the English Translations of Some Tang Poems
In this section I will deal with the realization of the cultural implications of certain numeral expressions in translation from discussing some examples. Most of the examples I discuss here are taken from Xu Yuanchong’s English translations of the Tang Poems, chiefly from his English Translations of the Tang Poems.
We have demonstrated that certain numeral expressions in the Tang Poems involve notional or aesthetic meanings. Consequently to keep the cultural implications of the original as invariant as possible in the translation should be the ultimate goal to pursue in translating poems. In other words, how well the cultural implications including aesthetic suggestiveness of these numeral expressions in the translations is retained is key to assessing a translation.
Similarly as has been demonstrated in the previous chapters of this thesis, the frequent employment of certain numeral expressions in Chinese classic poetry confirms the fact that Chinese classic poets’ unique aesthetic preference is deeply rooted in Chinese traditional culture, especially in Taoism, which as a school of thought not only resulted in the casual, free life style of the ancient Chinese poets, but also nourished their special aesthetic preference Chinese classic poetry, especially in the Tang Poems. Then there naturally arises this question: can the deep cultural implications in the special numbers in the Tang Poems be transferred into the English translations?
In fact, even to best translator of Chinese classic poetry like Xu Yuanchong, how to deal with these special numbers employed in Chinese classic poetry like this one is a challenge, for example:
Original
一柞春风一叶舟，
一纶茧缕一轻钩，
……
万顷波中得自由。
Translation by Xu:
The dripping oar, the vernal wind, a loaf-like boat,
A light fish hook, a silken thread of fishing line,
…
Upon the endless waves with freedom I float.
Undoubtedly this is a very beautiful translation. But unfortunately I have to say that there is some important implications which the translation cannot convey to the readers of the English version because the “absence” of the numbers:
1). In the original poem four“一” (one’s) are obviously intentionally employed to convey implications like isolation, freedom oneness of man and nature.
2). “万” (ten thousand) in the original represents grandiose of the surroundings, forming sharp contradicting with “一”suggesting the special understanding of the poet to life: freedom results from being tiny.
However, the following example is a eulogy for freedom of life from another angle: the active side. Just as in the above one two sharply contradicting numbers are employed (“千” v. “一”):
登鹳雀楼
白日依山尽，
黄河入海流。
欲穷千里目，
更上一层楼。
(Translation by Xu Yuanchong)
On the Stork Tower
The sun beyond the mountains glows; The Yellow River seawards flows. You can enjoy a grander sight, By climbing to a greater height.
This poem was written by Wang Zhihuan, who tells about his ambitions in striving forward in the life. From this poem I can also find there is a philosophic insight about life, i.e., one can have a broader perspective about life only when he has more experience.
For the first glance I may make a conclusion that the translation by Mr. Xu Yuanchong’s is an excellent one since poet’s philosophic insight about life is explicitly expressed by the last two lines in the this translation:
You can enjoy a grander sight, By climbing to a greater height.
But this translation has been criticized for being too straight and lacking vividness:
“Mr. Xu’s translations of the last two lines of the original poet, You can enjoy a grander sight/By climbing to a greater height, sound like silly lines of songs for kids since the images in the original disappeared…”
Although I have great esteem for Mr. Xu for his extraordinary contributions in introducing Chinese classic poetry to the readers with western culture background, I have to admit that the comment of Mr. Zhang on Mr. Xu’s translations is by no means unreasonable. Because the last two lines in Xu’s translation are in fact too abstract in its meaning and obviously the cultural implications conveyed by the numbers in the numeral expressions “千里目”“一层楼” do not exist in the rending. As a result, the readers of the translated version can never have the chance to know that the numeral expressions “千里目”“一层楼” can have affluent implications in Chinese classic poems and play the role of literary archetypes: “千里” implying grandiose and conveys a sharp contradict with “一层” meaning one period of the experience in life. Following the principles that translating acts as a purposeful activity to transmitting the cultural implications in the original culture-lingua, I venture to offer my rendering on the last two lines of the poem in question:
Widen your view hundreds of miles, By going up one flight of stairs.
In my rendering, I intensively retain the two numbers, believing it important to let the readers of the translated text to know the literary technique of the poet: employing two sharp contradicting numbers (“one” v. “hundreds”) to demonstrate both philosophic and aesthetic suggestiveness in the poem.
In order to iterate the importance of transferring the cultural implications of the original from retaining certain numbers in the translations, I compare two different translations of the same poem of Li Bai. (I focus my discussion on the renderings of certain numeral expressions contained in the poem, since other considerations are beyond the scope of this thesis.)
Original
飞流直下三千尺，
疑是银河落九天
(Translated by Xu Yuanzhong)
It’s torrent dashes down three thousand feet high
As if the Silver River fell from azure sky.
Translated by Wang Shouyi and John Rofel
The torrent dropping three thousand feet
Straight down the valley floor
I think it must be the milk way
Spilling to the earth from the ninth heaven
The numeral expression“三千尺”obviously does not denote the real height of the Mount Lu or the waterfall; but it conveys the poet aesthetic experience to the grandiose of the scene in the eyes of the poet Li Bai and there is little doubt such a literary text (poetry) can produce a particular aesthetic experience effect in its readers if it is retained in the translated version so long as the readers have basic knowledge about Chinese culture. One can notice that both Xu and Wang’s translations have kept the number that literally means “three thousand ” in their translations, obviously believing “three thousand feet” can function aesthetically by stimulating the readers’ imaginations and esteems to the grandiose of Mt. Lu.
However, divergence appears between Xu’s and Wang’ translations about “九天”: Xu’s translated text: azure sky; Wang’s rendering: the heavens. In Chinese language“九天”represents Chinese people’s understanding to the structure of the cosmos: the earth“地” (a huge square continent) is stationed in the center of the universe and the heaven“天”is arched spheres covering the earth“地”, “九天”being the ninth and the highest of the spheres. These opinions in Chinese culture obviously are imaginations; they represent the results of the special understanding of ancient Chinese people to the physical world. Therefore “九天”in the original conveys notional meaning and functions as a culture symbol. Wang and Rofel try to convey these beliefs of traditional culture in their translation, therefore they use “the ninth heaven” for“九天”. Based on the theme of this thesis that translating can be a purposeful activity, I can conclude that Wang and Rofel’s translation can function more validly in “translating” the cultural implications into the target lingua-culture. In other words: If translating is chosen to be a purposed activity, i.e. exporting the special implications hidden in Li Bai’s poem for the increasing demand of adoption of traditional Chinese culture, I think, Wang and Rofel’s translation is undoubtedly an excellent option.
6. Conclusion
As has been pointed out in the three chapters numbers and numeral expressions in Chinese lingua-culture can denote not only the items of things, but also people’s understandings of the substantial world and, most importantly, numbers can even have aesthetic values as they do in Chinese language. Therefore, I think it is a peculiar perspective to explore Chinese culture itself from analyzing the cultural implications of numbers employed in Chinese classic poetry in the Tang Dynasty and the problems that arise in translating them into another language like English.
In this thesis I have suggested three terms: perceptional meaning (认知意义), notional meaning (理解意义) and aesthetic meaning (审美意义). Based on the opinion of English philosopher John Lock that the meanings of words are as the results of people’s mental achievements. Notional meaning of words represents the results as understanding process; that aesthetic meaning of words reflects aesthetic experience of people. In this article I have expressed the opinion that the harmony of nature-human in traditional Chinese culture is expressed in the implications of certain special numbers or numeral expressions in some Tang Poems. Therefore it is valuable to reveal the beauty of Chinese classic poems in the 21 century when people’s ecological and environmental consciousness is growing and in cultural communication.
This article, as one of the numberless discussions about the Tang Poems, chiefly focuses on theoretical aspect of translating. I have discussed on the special implications of certain numbers in the Tang Poems, believing that they are as the results of the influence of traditional Chinese culture, especially Daosim; proposed a model for analyzing the potential meanings conveyed in numeral expressions; tried to explain why it is most difficult to translate Chinese classic poetry; analyzed the realization of certain numeral expressions’ cultural implications in the English translations.
As a brief conclusion I should say that translating Chinese classic poems is at the top of all translating activity if the difficulties are considered; but to have satisfactory renderings for the special numbers employed in them may be at the top of the top.
Any way, translating is very difficult and perhaps is “the most complex activity in the cosmos” (Eugene Nida). It was, is and still will be a challenge to the translators who are ambitiously trying to bridge the gap between cultures and languages. I have great esteem for their contributions and will be grateful forever.
Abbreviations
PM | Perceptional Meaning |
NM | Notional Meaning |
AM | Aesthetic Meaning |
Acknowledgments
While preparing this thesis, I often feel grateful to all the teachers in the Foreign Language School (Tianjin Normal University) who have taught me some courses; without their instructions I would never have been able to write this thesis in English, a foreign language about which I knew nothing before I was 18. I want to thank Professor Gu Gang, whose complimentary words are one of the factors that encourage me to develop and complete the theme of this thesis which is obviously beyond my ability to do. I also want to express my particular thanks to Professor Zhao Lizhu, whose critical words are vital to the forming of the theme of my thesis, not to mention his kindness in correcting the mistakes I made in the first and the second draft, linguistic or literal.
Author Contributions
Wang Ruifu is the sole author. The author read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest
The author declares no conflicts of interest.
References
| [1] |
Nida, Eugene A, 1993, Language, Culture and Translating, Shanghai Foreign Language Press.
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| [2] |
Baker, B. 2000, In Other Words: A Course on translation. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press.
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| [3] |
Lao Tzu: 1977, Tao Te Ching, Wordsworth Editions Limited.
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| [4] |
Scruton, Roger: 1987, A Short History of Modern Philosophy, Pagan Books Corporation, UK.
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| [5] |
Nord, Christiane: Translating As a Purposeful Activity, Shanghai Foreign Language Press.
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| [6] |
Yang Xianyi: 2002, A Choice Selection of Ancient Poems: Tang Poem.
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| [7] |
K-H. Pohl: 1997, An Intercultural Perspective on Chinese Aestheticism.
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| [8] |
Peter, Bantoan: 1998, J. W. von Goethe’s: Faust (first part), translated and with introductions, Dual-language edition, London, UK.
|
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Ruifu, W. (2025). Cultural Implications of Numbers in the Tang Poems & the Realization of Them in the English Translations. International Journal of Philosophy, 13(3), 116-134. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16
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Ruifu, W. Cultural Implications of Numbers in the Tang Poems & the Realization of Them in the English Translations. Int. J. Philos. 2025, 13(3), 116-134. doi: 10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16
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Ruifu W. Cultural Implications of Numbers in the Tang Poems & the Realization of Them in the English Translations. Int J Philos. 2025;13(3):116-134. doi: 10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16
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@article{10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16,
author = {Wang Ruifu},
title = {Cultural Implications of Numbers in the Tang Poems & the Realization of Them in the English Translations
},
journal = {International Journal of Philosophy},
volume = {13},
number = {3},
pages = {116-134},
doi = {10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijp.20251303.16},
abstract = {As a unique language Phenomenon, numeral expressions are frequently employed in Ancient Chinese poems including the Tang Poems, the most influential and most precious part of Chinese literature. Therefore it is meaningful to study them since numeral expressions in Chinese language bear abundant cultural implications that are deeply rooted in a traditional Chinese culture tradition: Daoism, the ultimate goal of which is to reach harmony between man and nature and this in fact has become the goal of life for many Chinese poets who are nurtured by Daoism. The objective of this article is to study this language phenomenon in the Tang Poems, explain why it is difficult to translate Tang Poems into English language and strive to seek a solution to this problem. In order to reach this purpose, we propose a tripartie model for numeral semantics, namely, numeral expressions in Chinese language may convey three potential meanings: perceptional meaning, notional meaning and aesthetic meaning; while expressed in different languages, the intersections of meanings (co-knowledge, consensus, consonance) vary in degree; among them, the least one is the intersection of aesthetic meanings, by which we mean the aesthetic feeling that can be motivated by language, either the original or the target. Based on our “meaning system” framework and bridging linguistic analysis and cultural philosophy, this article reaches the conclusion: three kind of meaning intersections between the original and target languages must be realized for successful translations, including, undoubtedly, the translations of the Tang Poems. In conclusion, this article points out that whenever translating is regarded as a purposeful activity, only techniques that can transmit cultural implications of the numeral expressions in Tang poems into the target language are ideal options of translation.},
year = {2025}
}
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Cultural Implications of Numbers in the Tang Poems & the Realization of Them in the English Translations
AU - Wang Ruifu
Y1 - 2025/07/30
PY - 2025
N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16
DO - 10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16
T2 - International Journal of Philosophy
JF - International Journal of Philosophy
JO - International Journal of Philosophy
SP - 116
EP - 134
PB - Science Publishing Group
SN - 2330-7455
UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20251303.16
AB - As a unique language Phenomenon, numeral expressions are frequently employed in Ancient Chinese poems including the Tang Poems, the most influential and most precious part of Chinese literature. Therefore it is meaningful to study them since numeral expressions in Chinese language bear abundant cultural implications that are deeply rooted in a traditional Chinese culture tradition: Daoism, the ultimate goal of which is to reach harmony between man and nature and this in fact has become the goal of life for many Chinese poets who are nurtured by Daoism. The objective of this article is to study this language phenomenon in the Tang Poems, explain why it is difficult to translate Tang Poems into English language and strive to seek a solution to this problem. In order to reach this purpose, we propose a tripartie model for numeral semantics, namely, numeral expressions in Chinese language may convey three potential meanings: perceptional meaning, notional meaning and aesthetic meaning; while expressed in different languages, the intersections of meanings (co-knowledge, consensus, consonance) vary in degree; among them, the least one is the intersection of aesthetic meanings, by which we mean the aesthetic feeling that can be motivated by language, either the original or the target. Based on our “meaning system” framework and bridging linguistic analysis and cultural philosophy, this article reaches the conclusion: three kind of meaning intersections between the original and target languages must be realized for successful translations, including, undoubtedly, the translations of the Tang Poems. In conclusion, this article points out that whenever translating is regarded as a purposeful activity, only techniques that can transmit cultural implications of the numeral expressions in Tang poems into the target language are ideal options of translation.
VL - 13
IS - 3
ER -
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